Mill Assembly 05

After some thought (and a helpful comment on my thread at CNCzone.com), I've modified the design a tad. I'm going to go with 3/8" (up from 3/16") rods for the linear guides. I've also noticed how unimportant a little lengthwise movement in the guides is to the accuracy of the machine, so I'm reducing the number of shaft collars. This will also make it more economical to just buy pre-made collars, instead of turning my own.

This render also has updates for the frame mounting areas: the steel strips I have available are 2.5" wide (was designed for 2" wide strips). The Z-axis strips are now also supported by wider brackets.

Finally, I was working on the motor mounts a little, and realized I gave myself almost no room for mounting hardware. The easy solution is to just cut some longer tubes and mount the motors at 45 degrees (the motors I have only have 2 mounting screws, anyway). This gives a lot more clearance for tightening the nuts, but slightly reduces the accessibility of the couplers.